Why 8pm? Aren’t women supposed to stay at home?

Gurgaon is often referred to as the Millennium City of India. Once touted as the City South of Delhi, a clear take on South Delhi, the playground of Delhi’s rich and upwardly mobile, it has, in the past few years, beaten the country’s capital with the pace and quality of its real-estate development. The city is now home to some of the biggest corporate houses and professionals.

It is to cater to this upwardly mobile, with loads of cash to spare, clientele that it also spawned a huge ‘mall’ culture with plenty of opportunities thrown in for shopping, entertainment, fine dining and bars. But that is where the good things end. While the private sector rose to the occasion and delivered, as expected, the local administration has failed – and miserably. The city’s infrastructure is a joke. The roads are a mess. There is nothing called rainwater drainage. Sanitation is non-existent. Power supply is erratic, at best. Whichever way one looks at it, it is ‘ slumdog India’. Despite the city contributing the maximum to Haryana’s coffers, it seems the politician-builder nexus has no long-term vision and is content using the city a milch cow.

In between, there seemed to be some hope when the city was given a municipal corporation and to make things even better, recently a maverick, but proactive gent was given charge of the local body responsible for the upkeep of the urban areas. Sadly though, they too have failed, which I suspect is more due to the nexus mentioned above. That, however, doesn’t absolve the administrators who too have bungled. And the latest diktat of the district administration to ask women to stop working after 8 in the evening is perhaps the most stupid diktat.

It is a diktat that screams: We are useless. We have abdicated our responsibility. We cannot guarantee safety to the residents of our city. We cannot guarantee the workforce its safety. Our police is no good. We admit, this lawlessness is beyond us.

It is a diktat that shows the administration in an Ostrich-like mode. Take the easy way out and instead of trying to tackle the issue head on, ask women employees to stop working 8pm onwards. Brilliant. As someone responded to me on twitter: Does this apply only to women workers or even shoppers? I would add to it. Does this apply to office workers and countless BPOs that dot the city and have hundreds of women working in different shifts? There are even some high-profile women honchos in the city working for large corporates and am sure they keep long hours. Would they be forced to leave by 8 too? And most importantly, does the rapist know if the woman walking out is an office-goer, or a shopper or a BPO employee or a bar employee?

I agree that there is a huge culture issue in the North. And I am not saying this to spark a North-South-West-East debate, please. Rapes happen all over, but when it happens with the alarming frequency as has been happening here, it tells a tale. I have already discussed in the past the huge socio-economic problems that are looming due to this overtly materialistic society. It is impacting a lot of youngsters, especially those whose families sold off their land where these luxury apartments and malls now stand. These youngsters have now blown up all their money but have no fallback option.

Right, but these are the problems that need to be tackled head on. Taking the easy way out by either ignoring them or denying that the issue exists is stupid. But giving diktats such as what the administration has done is even worse. It shows the administration that has thrown its hands up. That seems to convey that women are a problem. Nothing can do more to shake the confidence of the residents of any city than this. It is an order that needs to be revoked.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

Author

Rajesh Kalra is the Chief Editor of Times Internet and business head for the non-English languages properties. A journalist for two decades, he also tried his hands at entrepreneurship in between. Although he has written on several subjects, he has a weakness for IT and telecommunications. He is an avid sportsman, a trained high-altitude mountaineer, a passionate mountain biker and a marathoner. His blog, Random Access, will cover issues that take into account these varied interests.
Follow @rajeshkalra on Twitter

Rajesh Kalra is the Chief Editor of Times Internet and business head for the non-English languages properties. A journalist for two decades, he also tried h. . .

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Author

Rajesh Kalra is the Chief Editor of Times Internet and business head for the non-English languages properties. A journalist for two decades, he also tried his hands at entrepreneurship in between. Although he has written on several subjects, he has a weakness for IT and telecommunications. He is an avid sportsman, a trained high-altitude mountaineer, a passionate mountain biker and a marathoner. His blog, Random Access, will cover issues that take into account these varied interests.
Follow @rajeshkalra on Twitter

Rajesh Kalra is the Chief Editor of Times Internet and business head for the non-English languages properties. A journalist for two decades, he also tried h. . .